St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-12-03
DIR LAND OF CANAAN
THE STATE WHERE THE ORANGE
AND PINEAPPLE GROW.

All the Fruits With None of the Discom-
forts and Dangers of the Tropics-Ihe
gemop. Lime, Pomegranate and Citron
Thrive Excellently Well in Florida.
When those spies came back from the
land of Canaan, staggering under the
weight of gigantic punches of grapes,
how the mouths of the travel-Worn
children of Israel must have watered as
they reveled in anticipation of the lux
uries of the Promised Land! When we
see a basket of Florida oranges gleam-
ing in the market perhaps we feel
longing to soiourn in the land which
produced them. If Ponce de Leon had
foreseen the productiveness of the land
he discovered when the Easter anthems
were pealing in the great cathedrals at
home he would have named it the land
of fruits and flowers. 1t is delightful to
read glowing descriptions of the luscious
fruits of the equatorial regions. One
sees in his mind the pine and the banana
growing or their native stalks in the
tangled wealth of tropical forest. One
sees the fluffy date palm towering
ever the yellow sand of the Ara
bian desert and smells the frag-
rance of those breezes which per-
fume their wings in the dark shades
of the nutmeg and cinnamon forests in
the Spice islands; but, alas one also
sees the fierce tiger crouching in the
Jungle, hears the roar of the lion, the
laugh of the hyena and the hiss of
venomous serpents-inhabitant of this
earthly paradise. Sixty hours ride in
comfortable railway car and steamboat
will take you to a land where you can
enjoy the luxuries of the tropics and es-
cage the dangers. All you have to do is
to avoid the jaws of an alligator. Flor
ida, the Canaan of the United States, is
o division of that panorama of the world
which our wonderful country offers to
view. In its limits one can see the world
and taste most of its fruits. You
can have a realistic representation
of Siberian winter in Minnesota,
you can appreciate the heat right under
the equator by passing the summer in
the nations capital. You can see more
than the Alps amid the Rocky noun
tains, and ride for days over the sandy
plains of New Mexico and experience
Sahara. In Florida you have the tropics,
and more than the tropics. For without
languishing under torrid suns, and with
out fear of ferocious beasts, you can
pluck the orange, the lemon, the lime,
the citron and the banana, and then find
by the side of these luscious fruits the
Aomely apple, the blushing peach and
the melting pear to remind you of the
cid farm in the North. These fruits of
the tropics are not the stale affairs we
see in the North, ripened on shipboard
or in a cellar, and exposed in a fruit
erer's shop to the dust and CRIME of a
great city, but fresh from their native
vines.
After you pass below 800 latitude
groves of wild orange trees stud the
land, and when in blossom cast their
fragrance to the breeze. Whether they
are Indigenous or whether the seeds were
planted by one of Ponce de Icons fol-
lowers to perpetuate in the new world
the orange groves of Seville comes not
I'm the scope of this paper. There they
are wild and sour, for the original
grange is always sour and the sweet
orange must be budded on this wild
stalk to produce the fruit we eat. Pre-
vious to 1885 the orange crop of Florida
was of Importance, but in that year an
unusually severe spell of weather set in,
the mercury falling below zero, and
Acaused widespread destruction to The
asrange groves. The farmers set to work
Slanting out new cuttings, and these
4 aad barely attained an age to give hopes
f.of q renewal of prosperity, when the
n.range coccus appeared in 1s42 For
T. L sSevep yes~s- lis mischievous insect So
goth. Lower Bayou and totally destroyed
7. Daniel. defying all efforts
21st. Old Grand Pts5s he departed as
aul Stagg; Ernest Ort, land from this wear
mot, II. Il: DeshoteIs, DEDUCTION of the
tagg and Clement Vidl - ~
22d. Bayou Chicot, IN 1aroe docroo
aas, Eli Clark, S. II. Gt 10 larg gge aegtss
thompson, c. M. Richard, pa. auy isao1e
am Haas; Dayid Clark an, ne seeo. IL
esq., s@pD possmsp ff4it be Produced ed
T. Oliver will yield fruit in about
oath. Beaver In Italy tree is called full
initials and 4. six crops, or rather when it
25th. Ctsl say one hundred oranges; from
srron, Sint it steadily ascends until 1000
J. Fusills may be gathered from its
P. Lahes, and it will produce fruit for
onse Gu years. q bears one crop yearly,
oxies to as in May, and the fruit will cling
10Th. B branches until December sets in.
irier italy oranges are generally barreled
le9 September, cut green, and the flavor
aB said to be improved by so doing. The
T Florida orange excels the Sicilian, and
closely dresses the Cuban fruit in point
exceiience.
The lemon and lime, the propagation
and cultivation of which are identical with
the orange, are grown in great perfec-
ton, excelling those produced in the
Mediterranean countries to such an ex-
tent that natives of those lands often
claim the Florida fruit to be new species,
0 claim, however, that cannot be easily